Chapter 29 Alarik
Alarik
There was a rhythm to war, the thwack of blade meeting bone, then the gurgled gasp of a dying foe.
Alarik found the flow with such ease, he felt like he had never left the battlefield.
As Regna’s troops bore down on him from every direction, he felt no fear.
Only purpose. He gave himself over to war, revelling in the familiar rush of his adrenaline.
He rode it right into the heart of battle, where he slashed his way through every crimson-armoured soldier who dared raise their sword to him.
Blood sprayed all around him, a fountain of red painting Borvil’s once-gleaming silver armour.
It covered Alarik, too, but left no stain.
His armour was as black as the mountains before him.
The mountains Queen Regna had dared to take for her own.
Strike by strike, and inch by inch, he railed against her troops, roaring like a rabid beast. Red-breasted soldiers swarmed him, some even managing to nick him, but Anika was there in a heartbeat, bringing her axes down in crushing blow after crushing blow.
She knew the rhythm, too.
Together, they were unstoppable.
‘You still remember how to fight!’ yelled Alarik, as he charged a pair of Vaskan soldiers, skewering both on his sword.
‘I never stopped!’ crowed Anika, easily dispatching two more. ‘Did you forget how good I was?’
‘How could I, after you shattered my ankle when we were teenagers?’ he said, laughing.
‘That’ll teach you to push me into a lake!’
As they fought, Alarik kept one eye on Hunter’s Pass, expecting Regna to come barrelling through it, but there was no sign of the cowardly queen. Only the soldiers she had sent to die for her.
Despite the onslaught from the skies, the king’s army was slowly gaining ground, the weaver elk and their riders guarding the west flank and helping to push Regna’s forces back towards the mountains and through the main pass.
To the east, his wrangler rode at the head of his beasts, her silver armour glittering in the afternoon sun.
Alarik would have known her anywhere – that determined tilt of her chin, the ease with which she rode on wolf-back.
Her voice arced above the fray, orders flying like arrows as the beasts struck in perfect formations, making rag dolls of Regna’s troops.
Alarik burned with pride. His wrangler was a force of nature, as brave as her brother and twice as fierce. Here, in the bloodied heat of battle, she had become a fighter. A soldier. A leader. Together with his beasts, she was a living, breathing work of art.
Behind Alarik, Captain Vine led the ground assault while Hale fired the lances and cannons, knocking gliders out of the sky with the help of the falconer and his birds.
They made a formidable team, all of them.
After hours of fighting ceaselessly, they managed to regain the frozen flats and clear the foothills.
They continued to push north, Alarik’s blood singing with the beginnings of victory as they sealed off Hunter’s Pass. Regna’s forces were dwindling, but he was careful not to let his guard down. Not while the cunning queen refused to show her face, or play the fullness of her hand.
His instincts soon proved true.
As they ventured up through the foothills, the mountain bled fresh troops, two thousand more of Regna’s soldiers pouring out of the old mining tunnels and appearing like spectres before them.
And there among them, towering in height and clad in spiked gold armour, with her long white hair streaming behind her, was Queen Regna. Vask, made flesh. Gleaming and lethal, and baying for blood.
Let her try and take it from him.
Regna raised her spear as she charged, a war cry bursting from her like a terrible aria.
Alarik bellowed a warning as the Vaskan spears flew.
But the ambush had caught them off guard, and Regna’s soldiers were fast. His front line fell with horrifying quickness, Borvil rearing backwards at the last second to the menacing point of Regna’s own spear.
It whistled past Alarik’s ear and struck Anika’s stag, right between the antlers.
She shrieked, tumbling from the dead beast, and only narrowly avoiding a second flying spear.
She tripped over another soldier’s corpse, scrabbling to find a mount as Regna’s ambush closed in on them.
Alarik was about to yank his sister up on to Borvil’s back when a snow tiger charged from the east, sent no doubt by his eagle-eyed wrangler. Anika ran for it.
Alarik roared at his army, hastily remaking the front line as more crimson soldiers poured from a tunnel up ahead. Their gold helmets set them apart from the others Alarik had felled, but his gaze was fixed on Regna.
Take her head, and end the battle.
She is within your reach.
She pushed closer, likely harbouring the same thought.
Fearless now that she had the advantage. And she had chosen the best of her soldiers to guard her. Alarik could tell at once they were skilled, brutal fighters, forgoing their shields for maces and spears.
He refused to be cowed.
‘Good of you to show up at last!’ he yelled, across the tide of battle. ‘I’m sure your dead soldiers would thank you if they still had their heads.’
Regna cut down three of his soldiers on her way to get to him. ‘You can tell them I won when you join them in the afterlife.’
Closing the last gap between them, Alarik ended six of her warriors in six calculated strikes, before sliding from Borvil’s back. The rest of the war arced around them as they met in the heart of the Blackspires.
Somewhere over his shoulder, Anika’s voice rang out. ‘Take her head, brother! I could do with a new ornament.’
Regna made a noise of utter disgust. ‘This is what happens when you send children to war.’
‘Your sword hand is trembling,’ taunted Alarik.
‘Only in anticipation!’ she said, swinging hard.
Their blades met in a singing clash. ‘This won’t be a clean death,’ he said, dealing another. ‘I intend to gut you like you gutted my mountains.’
She growled, pushing her blade against his. ‘I hear you have something that belongs to my people. We intend to take it back.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said, coolly.
She snorted. ‘Do not lie to me, dragon thief.’
Again, she swung. Alarik leaped backwards, letting the anger of her own momentum knock her off balance. He darted close then, pushing her back three steps.
‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to believe in fairy tales, Regna?’
‘Didn’t your father ever warn you, beast king? Vask has eyes everywhere. Even in that glittering eyesore of a palace of yours.’ She struck out, seizing his fleeting surprise. He stumbled backwards, before quickly righting himself. ‘I will have what’s mine. By blade or by fate’s design.’
They fought on, trading insults and blows, until the rest of the world fell away.
When Alarik looked up again, his front line had been decimated once more.
Borvil prowled at his back, while Anika had fallen behind in the clash.
Captain Vine was pushing more soldiers into the foothills but the corpses there were slowing their ascent and the rock was too loose for the weaver elk.
Hale’s fire lances were still trained on the sky.
Falling back, Alarik wiped the blood from his hands and regripped the pommel of his sword.
For the first time that day, fear nipped at the edges of his heart.
His soldiers were falling too quickly. His ranks were depleting, most of them still stuck down on the frozen tundra.
Regna and her sea of steel was holding firm, and for a terrifying moment, Alarik felt entirely alone in this battle.
Was this to be his last stand? Was he doomed to fall here on the black soil, with Regna’s sword in his chest?
Borvil’s strength was lagging, the ice bear picking up on the thread of his anxiety. Alarik was losing control of himself. He was losing control of this war. Victory was slipping like silt through his fingers …
Regna grinned through the grill of her helmet, like she could sense it.
‘HOLD THE LINE!’ His wrangler’s cry ripped through him like an inferno.
He stiffened, like a wolf called to attention.
The earth rumbled, and he glanced over his shoulder to find his beasts stampeding up the mountain, tearing their way through Regna’s regiment of gold helmets with a viciousness that made his blood pump faster.
They swarmed Alarik in their droves, filling out a new front line that cast dread in the eyes of their enemies. Trembling at the sight, Regna staggered backwards, quickly widening the space between them. The remaining gold helmets rushed to guard her, while others turned back towards the tunnels.
Cowards.
Alarik’s lips curled. Bolstered by the courage of his beasts, he shoved away his fear and fought on, slashing and roaring as he lopped off those gold helmets and sent them tumbling down the mountain. Ever moving towards Regna as she scrabbled up the slope, making for the summit.
In his mind, he heard his father’s voice.
Don’t think, just strike. And strike again.
Until her army falls at your front,
Or your army falls at your back.
Strike until your final breath leaves you.
And even then, strike once more.
‘There’s no honour in retreat!’ Alarik yelled after the Vaskan queen. ‘One way or another, I’ll have your head!’
Anika soon returned to his side. Though he couldn’t see his sister, he could hear her grunts on the wind, caught the spray of blood every time her axe found its mark.
He matched her stroke for stroke, ignoring the blows that landed on his arms and legs, the blades that dented his breastplate and bruised his ribs.
He barely blinked as he fought his way up the slope, keeping his eyes on the ribbons of Regna’s white hair.
After a while, the sky cleared, the nighthawks circling low as they scoured the mountaintops.
Alarik shouted orders over his shoulder, calling for General Hale to use the remaining fire lances on the mining tunnels.
They were sealed off in short order, ten concentrated blasts setting loose a shower of rock and rubble that stemmed the flow of Regna’s soldiers.
As evening fell, the war turned in their favour. Regna had reached the summit, but her strength was spent. There was barely fifty feet between them now, and only a handful of weary soldiers. Light work for a king in the full tilt of his own adrenaline.
He could get to her.
He would get to her.
And end this war, once and for all.
Then the wind changed. Regna smiled and looked to the east. He followed the line of her sight, to where a lone, crimson-breasted soldier was coming over the mountaintop.
A beast of a man, with hulking shoulders and legs like tree trunks.
He had forgone his helmet, revealing a broad pale face framed by a black mane and roughened beard.
He had a crooked nose and wide dark eyes that seemed to take in everything as he stood out on a jutting rock, his steel-tipped spear glimmering in the waning light.
There wasn’t a hint of blood on it.
He was scouring the battlefield like he was looking for someone in particular. When he turned his head, Alarik noted the thin band of black ink around his thick neck. The mark of a Ryberg warrior.
So, this was the mercenary Elias had warned Alarik about. The terrifying Spear of Ryberg, who Queen Regna had brought to battle too late to help her cause.
Alarik snorted. Not only was the Spear not fighting, he wasn’t even attempting to defend Regna, who could use all the help she could get now that Alarik was mere yards from killing her.
He pressed on.
But as Alarik cut down another slew of weary Vaskan soldiers, it occurred to him that Regna was no fool. She was a master strategist. His attention splintered, and fleetingly, he wondered if he should pick off the warrior first. Fell whatever plan he had concocted with the queen.
No.
Focus.
Victory was within reach.
Mounting Borvil, Alarik urged the bear further up the mountain, towards the queen.
She wasn’t looking at Alarik now. She was looking past him, towards the east flank where the rest of his beasts were fighting. Through the grill of her helmet, her smile grew, slow and cruel, revealing a glint of her famous steel teeth.
Dread trickled down Alarik’s spine. What the hell was she smiling at?
Another glance to the east revealed that the Spear was on the hunt.
He yanked a curved horn from his hip as he barrelled down the mountain, away from the queen of Vask.
Away from Alarik. He brought it to his lips, releasing an awful high-pitched note that sent the nighthawks spiralling away from the mountain.
Soldiers fell out of battle to slam their hands over their ears, while the beasts keened, scrambling away from the ear-splitting noise.
Alarik’s eyes went wide, as he took in the scene unfolding before him. The animals were bolting back down the mountain, leaving his wrangler alone on the rocky slope.
Weaponless, and without a mount.
Regna’s prized warrior was thundering towards her.
On the slope above him, the queen of Vask was laughing.
More soldiers were gathering at her back.
They must have been hiding on the other side of the summit.
She was never truly at Alarik’s mercy. No, she had made a distraction of herself, luring him away from the bulk of his army.
From his wrangler. ‘If I can’t have my dragon, then I’ll take someone just as valuable from you! ’
Horror sluiced through Alarik.
The Spear wasn’t here to kill the king of Gevra.
He was here to capture his wrangler.